Black Night is a long way from Home
by Gaby Black
Summary: Oneshot, response to BonniDolle's challenge. It's Christmas Eve of 1980 and Sirius finds the company of his friends stifling. He wanders outside on his own and remembers his brother. Black night is a long way from home... But where is home?


**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters mentioned; they are JK Rowling's. I don't own the lyrics at the beginning, they are Kovenant's, nor the lyrics at the end; they are Deep Purple's.

**Author's note:** This is a response to **BonniDolle**'s Christmas challenge - see her forums Black Magic for challenge information (notably, the first sentence Remus says is a prompt). I randomly found the lyrics at the beginning (don't even know the band) and found they fitted. I love the song "Black Night" by Deep Purple which is featured at the end; only the last line was written by me. The title is a reference to a line from this song which says that "black night is a long way from home"... The band members were drunk when they recorded that song, so, yeah... Understand whatever you want, and please review!**

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**Black night** is a **_long_** way from home

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_This is the night of the black winds_

_Where many a frozen soul finds way_

_And t__he sky is as dark as coal_

_In the endless bitter night_

_This is the night of the lonely winds_

_Here the light no longer guards_

_And the darkest one sits high on his throne_

_In this endless bitter night _

("Night of the black winds" by Kovenant)

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"The blackest night shall darken all souls, shall be the puppeteer of every good heart. All shall welcome oblivion, at the very end; it will be a mercy from the eternal hell of purest evil –"

"Oh, shut up, Moony, for Goodness's sake!" Sirius interrupts moodily.

Remus looks up from his book mildly and watches as Sirius keeps on pacing the room. It's Christmas Eve, 1980, and they're in Sirius's flat. Peter is here, too, and the atmosphere is strange and tense, like something is hovering above them (secrets and suspicions and _he thinks you're the spy, Remus_).

"I thought it was quite appropriate to tonight's… ah, dark atmosphere," Remus replies slowly.

Sirius and Peter look at each other quite uneasily, not knowing if Remus is being sarcastic or sincere, or a little bit of both. The silence stretches; Sirius has stopped pacing and is now looking out the window, his back turned to his friends.

"I don't think I've ever seen such a dark night," Peter finally says, his voice a little too high.

Sirius is staring at the starless sky; even the moon is hiding and there seems to be no light whatsoever outside. _The blackest night shall darken all souls…_

"You're right, Wormtail," Sirius whispers.

"It's quite creepy," Peter adds.

Sirius shrugs and turns back to them with a teasing smirk. "Are you still afraid of the dark?"

Peter blushes slightly and shakes his head. "Of course I'm not. You know what I meant –"

"Yes," Remus cuts in, "that's how I feel too."

Peter gives a slight shudder. Sirius looks at them uncomprehendingly, wishing that James and Lily were there. He doesn't want to think about them because it's breaking his heart; the only thought that gives him a little comfort is that they've got Harry. Still, he wishes he could be with them, but they'd told them it was too dangerous (apparently, Voldemort was very keen on Christmas night attacks).

"You're talking nonsense. There's nothing wrong with darkness," Sirius says.

Maybe it's because you're a Black, a voice whispers in his head. You don't mind darkness – no, you _like_ darkness, because you were born and raised in it. And darkness is very convenient when you've got things to hide –

"Shut up," Sirius mutters under his breath, and he's thankful that neither Peter nor Remus seems to have heard him.

Sirius turns again and his eyes wander far, far away into the night; snow is falling with rage and the wind's howling, yet all he wants to do is leave the fucking room. Leave the stifling hotness of the burning fire, leave the wary glances, leave _them_.

"I'm taking a walk," Sirius announces.

"A walk?" Remus asks, bemused. "But –"

"I'm taking a walk," Sirius repeats, his tone definitive.

Sirius scowls at Remus, as though threatening him to prevent him from going outside.

"Fine, then," Remus says, stiffly.

The both hate what they've become.

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Five minutes later Sirius is walking quickly, away from his flat and his friends (he no longer knows how to call them these days, no matter how much he loves them), shivering with cold. However, he feels more at ease now as he passes by the pretty little houses with people having fun in them, and he thinks it's probably the strangest feeling ever, but he's never been ordinary.

His gaze does not linger on the houses, though; he looks straight ahead, as though he knows where he is going (really, he's just walking away). After a while his mind is cold, too, and his hand is clutching at his wand, just in case. He thinks he sees Voldemort everywhere and points his wand at many dark corners. He can almost hear Voldemort's hissing voice (it's the wind) and hear his cruel laughter (it's just children laughing in the distance).

He knows he should go back, because he must be insane to be out with such a weather, and maybe he is _really_ going insane, but suddenly he stumbles upon two children. He is so lost in thoughts that he bumps into one of them.

"Sorry," Sirius mutters, gruffly, briefly wondering when was the last time he talked to a child, not counting Harry.

The older one pats the shoulder of the boy whom Sirius bumped into. They look about eight and ten years old.

"Are you okay, Reg?" he asks.

Sirius's heart jumps and he cannot help but repeat, his voice strangled with emotion and memories, "Reg?"

The older boy frowns at Sirius. "Yeah, his name's Reginald."

His little brother blinks up at Sirius with wide, innocent blue eyes, and Sirius's head is spinning. He turns and quickly walks away, his eyes burning.

Sirius blinks once, twice; a tear falls. He wipes it off angrily with his frozen, gloveless hand.

He suddenly realizes that today it has been exactly five months since Regulus died.

_It is snowing. __It's about six in the evening on Christmas Day, 1971, and Sirius and Regulus are playing in the streets with other children from the neighborhood. __Muggle__ children, of course, and Sirius laughs at the idea that his mother knows nothing about it; she's busy talking with his aunt and uncle inside the house and did not even notice when they sneaked out half an hour ago. However, Sirius constantly checks to see if she does not appear out of nowhere__ to shout at them. _

_"__Ow__!"_

_Sirius turns back to the children at the shout of pain, and finds Regulus lying on the snow-covered ground. The children run away, the oldest one making rude gestures at them. _

_"Are you okay, Reg?"_

_Sirius is by his brother's side, kneeling over him. Regulus blinks back tears, wincing. His nose is bleeding. _

_"David punched me in the face," Regulus mutters. _

_Sirius frowns. "Why?"_

_Regulus takes a deep breath and slowly stands on his feet. Sirius watches him warily. _

_"'Cause I told him he was a filthy, worthless __Muggle__," Regulus shrugs. _

_Sirius says nothing, but thoughts twirl around in his mind. He sees flashes of Hogwarts. _

_"And he doesn't even know what the word '__muggle__' mean!" Regulus laughs scornfully. _

_"You're only nine, Reg. Only nine," Sirius says darkly. "You don't know what you're saying. Let's go back inside."_

_"Yeah, let's go back home," Regulus agrees, and enters the house without waiting for his brother. _

_"__If this house__ is home…" Sirius __murmurs__, his words fading away into the night with no other listeners than the stars. _

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It's awful how well Sirius remembers everything; he'd thought he had erased it all from his mind. He can't see anything now; the snow is falling even harder and is covering his eyes now, sticking to his eyelids (he is _not _crying).

_All shall welcome oblivion, at the very end; it will be a mercy from the eternal hell of purest evil__…_

"Did you welcome oblivion, Reg?" Sirius whispers. "Did you?"

Purest evil is lurking everywhere that night and Sirius wonders if he would not welcome oblivion, too.

_Black night, black night_

_I don't need black night_

_I can't see dark light_

_Maybe I'll find on the way down the line_

_That I'm free, free to be me_

_Black night is a long way from home_

_… But where is home?_

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